Remember Me?
by Rose G
Summary: One meeting, one talk lasting only a few hours. How something like that, a childhood incident, can change lives forever. Centres on DC Meadows.


Remember Me?

Rose G

Disclaimer - Most characters, settings are the property of Thames TV, and I'm making no money from using them.

Archive - Yes, but ask first. Please.

'Tread carefully on this one would you, Jack? It's pretty sensitive.' Roberts gave the young DC an encouraging nod, and tried to wave him off. He didn't want to send Meadows alone; he was too young, too cocky to deal with this but there wasn't anyone else, so the brash new kid from Bradford would have to do his best. And if he ballsed it up, Roberts was going to kill him. He hadn't seen the mum and her son clinging together, crying, while they arrested the father; probably wouldn't have cared if he had done. Meadows was too seduced by the lights and the glamour of London; grotty council estates and the like weren't his thing. Roberts guessed that he'd be on the upward trail by the time he was thirty, well away from the streets and the realities of it all.

'Yeah, it's a domestic. I know. Keep my mouth shut. Sir.'

'Mean it, Jack. One word outta place, and I'll have you moved out of here so quick you won't stop to pack. Understand?'

'Sir.' Jack spun and jogged down to his car, the silver-grey Jag that was his pride and joy. He'd got it before he'd even sorted a place to live; as much part of him and his identity as the way he tied his hair back, as the leather jackets and tight jeans he favoured even on duty. It was a good drive as well, the first real day of spring, with the sun shining so that he left the window down and didn't care that anyone outside could hear him singing.

Arcand Estate was easy enough to find; head to the worst part of the borough and then left, and it looked rough enough that Jack wished he'd driven one of the general pool cars. Flat 87 was on the fifth floor, a fair hike up urine damp stairs because he didn't even bother to check the lift. He'd applied for a couple of postings in the West End; any of them would have been preferable to Dagenham, surely.

The door had been kicked in by the raid leader and only roughly repaired. Jack wasn't overly surprised that the woman who answered the door kept the security chain on until he'd identified himself, but the luminous beauty of her face under the mottled bruises startled him. He'd never thought of women in this situation as having the capacity to look beautiful, and it angered him, the first time in his memory that a victim had made him feel that way.

'You Mrs. Conny Webb? I'm DC Jack Meadows. DCI Roberts couldn't get here, something come up, so he sent me. Can I come in?'

Eventually, she let him in, and he was able to glance around the flat. It was tiny, far smaller than his place, although she'd kept it pretty clean. But clean didn't deal with the icy cold, or the way that cardboard had been pasted over the window.

'Is your son around?'

She nodded timidly, the same way she'd let him in. 'In his room. Be careful - they only let him out today. Why'd you want 'im?'

'Just to take a statement. Better here than the station, and he's had a chance to recover.'

'It's that door.' She nodded towards it; her evident love for her child overshadowed by exhaustion. She didn't seem to care.

Jack knocked on the closed door, seeing how the boy had been given the proper bedroom. His parents had curtained off one part of the other room to sleep in.

'What'd ya want?'

'Can I come in, please, Mickey?' He hoped he'd got the boy's name right; he hand't paid too much attention to the files.

'It's open.'

He let himself in and glanced around the pathetic room. The bed and some wooden shelves were the only furniture; they and the clothes all looked worn and dirty. He couldn't tell what the walls were like; they'd been covered in tatty, blue tacked, posters of football teams. It was cold and dark - there weren't any windows, and the light bulb was missing.

'I keep telling that silly cow not to call me Mickey. It's a kid's name, ain't it. My name's Michael.'

Jack looked at the boy, sitting on the bed. He was only eight - he remembered that from Roberts' briefing - and wearing jeans and t-shirt that were slightly too small for him, even though he looked small for his age. Blue eyes, a mop of blonde hair sticking out everywhere. Right arm encased in plaster, a neat line of stitches down the side of his face and bruises everywhere, mottled over his pale skin.

Despite all that, he stared at Jack with a mixture of challenge and defiance, blue eyes meeting blue. He looked ready to fight.

'Sorry, Michael.'

'Woss your name, Mister?'

'DC Meadows. Jack Meadows.'

'Woss DC mean?'

'Detective Constable. Then it's Sergeant, Inspector, Chief Inspector...'

'I ain't stupid.' Michael cut across him. 'An' I wouldn't mind being a copper one day, an' me old man says all coppers are bastards, but I don' fink they are. An' I could getta gun an' shoot 'em, if they were bad people.'

Jack took that opening gratefully. 'Bad people...like your dad?'

Michael nodded, and gave his statement, not adult enough yet to understand what had been done to him. Maybe not adult enough that it would haunt him for the rest of his life, but enough of a man that he knew he'd done the right thing in wading into one of the ongoing fights to protect his mum, to have carried on fighting even after his arm had broken.

Very much a man; after three hours or so taking the statement, Jack found that he'd grown fond of the young man and his worried courage. Fifteen years in age didn't make a difference to bravery or a wicked, albeit sick, sense of humour.

Eventually, he stood up to leave and Michael, still meeting his eyes, pulled the quilt up around himself for warmth.

'Michael...is there anything I could get for you?'

The instinctive reply saddened him; he'd never considered it since he'd started work, or even really, before that. His parents' income had protected him from that reality, and here was someone who'd gone up against a man in a fighting rage that he wouldn't have wanted to face, who was having to live by it. 'You'd want paying for it, so no go, 'cos we can't afford it.'

He spoke briefly with Conny, promised that the details would all be handed onto someone higher up. As he walked back to the car, he saw Michael standing by the front room window and looking down. He waved, and the boy raised his broken arm to wave back.

Chastened, Jack drove much more soberly on the way back. He'd never seen anything like that before, certainly not been affected by it so deeply, and he realised that he'd never forget the incident; that it had changed him in some way.

Roberts kept him off the case after that; the most he could do was to send some cash, slightly more than what he could spare, to them after the trail, with a note saying that it was Michael. He never heard back from them; he couldn't forget them, but he did, eventually, put them from his mind.

DCI Meadows glanced up at the knocking on his door, then back down to the paperwork. Chris Deakin called out, 'Can I come in, guv?'

'Door's open.'

Deakin strode in with a much younger, blonde haired man standing behind him. 'New DC, guv. Remember?'

'Yes, thanks.' He actually looked up, was instantly struck by the piecing blue of the stranger's eyes. He looked nervous but calm, as if this was what he'd earnt and he would fight to defend it. Something about the attitude, the defiance, seemed familiar.

Deakin slipped out almost unnoticed. 'I'm DCI Meadows. You are?'

'DC Mickey Webb.' He spoke with a strong East London accent.

'You local, then?'

'Yeah. All me life, round an' about 'ere.' Mickey grinned, raising his right hand to brush his hair back - a gesture Meadows remembered seeing a blonde haired boy named Michael struggling to do left-handly, years ago.

Are you him? Are you? He should have checked the files on the newest member of the team, rather than leaving it to Deakin.

'Anyway, guv, you got anything for me to do?' He was totally confident, showing no sign of deference or nervousness at being with a superior, as if he totally trusted Meadows.

'You work with DS Boulton for now. That red-haired bloke over in the corner. He's got plenty to do, an' he's a good bloke. Knows the ground.'

Mickey nodded, turned to go. His hand was resting on the door handle when he spun back to face Meadows. 'I gotta know...Were you in this job a few years back, over at Dagenham?'

'Sounds right.'

'Once, one spring...you went out and interviewed a young boy, didn't you...Arcland Estate...'

It was you, then. 'That was me.'

'You had the flashest silver car I'd ever seen, I remember that...And a few months later, you sent an hundred quid over, cash, didn't ya? Mum got me a pair of trainers from that...we had dinner out as well...'

Mickey smiled, a heartbreaking expression full of trust and loyalty.

'I thought it was you, when you come in with Deakin...'

'You saved my life, guv,' Mickey said simply, then let himself out of the office. Still smiling, still unbroken, and as Meadows realised now, someone who was his friend - his mate - forever more.


End file.
